Avalice Archives:Writing style
The Manual of Style serves as a style guide for all articles found in The . Based off of the Avatar Wiki's own Manual of Style, it exists to aid editors in creating consistent and clear to read articles. Article titles, sections, and headings Article titles An article title is a convenient label for the article, which distinguishes it from other articles. It need not be the name of the subject; many article titles are descriptions of the subject. The following points are critical to formatting article titles: * Use "sentence case" or "sentence-style": The initial letter of a title is capitalized; otherwise, capital letters are used only where they would be used in a normal sentence e.g. , not . * Use the singular form: Article titles should be singular e.g. , not . * Use full names without ranks for characters: Articles about characters should avoid the title or rank, unless the character is known only by the title e.g. , not . * Use parentheses to distinguish similar articles: e.g. and . Article sections * Headings should not normally contain links, especially where only part of a heading is linked. * Citations should not be placed within or on the same line as section and subsection headings. * Headings should not contain images, including flag icons. Spelling American spelling should be used on all canon encyclopedia articles on The , on any template transcribed on articles, on transcripts and on all official projects and blog posts. This is to reflect the American origin of Freedom Planet. There are the following exceptions: * Regional variations in spelling may be used in all other contexts on The , such as comments, talk pages, user pages, blog posts, fanon and fan fiction. * If quoting a source, never alter any part of the quotation, even if it does not use American spelling. Capital letters Unnecessary capitalization should be avoided. For example, use rather than . This is sometimes referred to as the "down style". Capitalization should be reserved for proper names only. Capitalization of "The" In general, do not capitalize a definite article in the middle of a sentence. However, some idiomatic exceptions, including most titles of artistic works, should be quoted exactly according to common usage. : Titles * In generic use, apply lower case for words such as king, prince and chief e.g. . * In parts of a person's title, begin such words with a capital letter e.g. , not . Royal styles are capitalized e.g. ; exceptions may apply for particular offices. : Flora and fauna Flora and fauna should be in lower case e.g. . An exception to this is if a character is known by the name of their species. : Locations * Names of institutions ( ; ) are proper nouns and require capitals. * Generic words for institutions (city hall, palace, museum) do not take capitals: * Political or geographical units such as cities, towns, and countries follow the same rules: as proper nouns they require capitals; but as generic words (sometimes best omitted for simplicity) they do not. "Internet" and "web" Like with other cases involving generic terms, "web" should not be capitalized unless it is used as part of the official name of a system or an organization. "Internet" is always capitalized. Italics * Use italics for the titles e.g. . * Italicize only the elements of the sentence affected by the emphasis. Do not italicize surrounding punctuation e.g. , not . Punctuation Apostrophes Consistent use of the straight (or typewriter) apostrophe ( ) is recommended, as opposed to the curly (or typographic) apostrophe ( ). Brackets and parentheses * If a sentence contains a bracketed phrase, place the sentence punctuation outside the brackets . * If one or more sentences are wholly inside brackets, place their punctuation inside the brackets. There should be no space next to the inner side of a bracket. An opening bracket should be preceded by a space, except in unusual cases; for example, when it is preceded by an opening quotation mark, another opening bracket, or a portion of a word. Ellipses An ellipsis is an omission, often used in a printed record of conversation. The ellipsis is represented by ellipsis points: a set of three dots. ; Style : Ellipsis points, or ellipses, have traditionally been implemented in three ways: :* Three unspaced periods ( ). This is the easiest way in the context of web publishing, and gives a predictable appearance in HTML. Recommended. :* Pre-composed ellipsis character ( ); generated with the … character entity, or as a literal "…". This is harder to input and edit, and too small in some fonts. Not recommended. :* Three spaced periods ( ). This is an older style that is unnecessarily wide and requires non-breaking spaces to keep it from breaking at the end of a line e.g. . . . . It is now generally confined to some forms of print publishing. Not recommended. ; Function and implementation : Use an ellipsis if material is omitted in the course of a quotation, unless square brackets are used to gloss the quotation (see above, and points below). :* Put a space on each side of an ellipsis, except that there should be no space between an ellipsis and: :** a quotation mark directly following the ellipsis :** any (round, square, curly, etc.) bracket, where the ellipsis is on the inside :** sentence-final punctuation, or a colon, semicolon, or comma (all rare), directly following the ellipsis :* Only place terminal punctuation after an ellipsis if it is textually important (as is often the case with exclamation marks and question marks, and rarely with periods). :* Use non-breaking spaces ( ) only as needed to prevent improper line breaks, for example: :** To keep a quotation mark from being separated from the start of the quotation ( ). :** To keep the ellipsis from wrapping to the next line ( ). ; Pause or suspension of speech : Three periods (loosely also called ellipsis points) are occasionally used to represent a pause in or suspense of speech, in which case the punctuation is retained in its original form ( ). Avoid this usage, except in direct quotations. ; With square brackets : An ellipsis does not normally need square brackets around it, because its function is usually obvious—especially if the guidelines above are followed. Square brackets, however, may optionally be used for precision, to make it clear that the ellipsis is not itself quoted; this is usually only necessary if the quoted passage also uses three periods in it to indicate a pause or suspension. The ellipsis should follow exactly the principles given above, but with square brackets inserted immediately before and after it ( ). Commas * Pairs of commas are often used to delimit parenthetic material, forming a parenthetical remark. This interrupts the sentence less than a parenthetical remark in (round) brackets or dashes. Do not be fooled by other punctuation, which can mask the need for a comma, especially when it collides with a bracket or parenthesis, as in this example: * Place quotation marks in accordance with logical punctuation: :: * Use serial commas. This is more consistent with the recommendations of authoritative style guides. :: * Modern practice is against excessive use of commas; there are usually ways to simplify a sentence so that fewer are needed. Colons A colon ( ) informs the reader that what comes after it demonstrates, explains, or modifies what has come before, or is a list of items that has just been introduced. The items in such a list may be separated by commas; or, if they are more complex and perhaps themselves contain commas, the items should be separated by semicolons: In most cases a colon works best with a complete grammatical sentence before it. There are exceptions, such as when the colon introduces items set off in new lines like the very next colon here. Examples: The word following a colon is capitalized, if that word effectively begins a new grammatical sentence, and especially if the colon serves to introduce more than one sentence: : No sentence should contain more than one colon. There should never be a hyphen or a dash immediately following a colon. Only a single space follows a colon. Semicolons A semicolon ( ) is sometimes an alternative to a period, enabling related material to be kept in the same sentence; it marks a more decisive division in a sentence than a comma. If the semicolon separates clauses, normally each clause must be independent (meaning that it could stand on its own as a sentence); often, only a comma or only a semicolon will be correct in a given sentence. : Above, "Though he had been here before" cannot stand on its own as a sentence, and therefore is not an independent clause. : This incorrect use of a comma between two independent clauses is known as a comma splice; however, in very rare cases, a comma may be used where a semicolon would seem to be called for: : A semicolon does not force a capital letter in the word that follows it. A sentence may contain several semicolons, especially when the clauses are parallel; multiple unrelated semicolons are often signs that the sentence should be divided into shorter sentences, or otherwise refashioned. : Dashes Two forms of dash are possible: en dash ( ) and em dash ( ). On , the former is preferred. A hyphen ( ), or two hyphens ( ) should never be used to substitute for a dash. : Do not use more than two dashes in a single sentence. More than two makes the structure unclear; it takes time for the reader to see which dashes, if any, form a pair. Slashes Avoid joining two words by a slash, also known as a forward slash or solidus ( ). Consider alternative wordings to avoid it. Terminal punctuation * Clusters of question marks, exclamation marks, or a combination of them (such as the interrobang), are highly informal and inappropriate in articles. * Use the exclamation mark with restraint. It is an expression of surprise or emotion that is generally unsuitable for an encyclopedia. Spacing * Never place a space before commas, semicolons, colons, or terminal punctuation. * Always place a space after the punctuation marks just mentioned, unless it is the end of a paragraph, dot point, list element or the article. * Use one space after terminal punctuation. The use of double spaces is pointless as MediaWiki automatically condenses any number of spaces to just one when rendering the page. Punctuation and footnotes Footnotes are used to add references (see policy on ). "Ref" tags should immediately follow the text to which they refer, with no space before the tag. When they coincide with punctuation, the tag is placed immediately after the punctuation. Multiple tags should have no space between them. Exceptions: "ref" tags are placed before, not after, dashes; and where a reference or other footnote applies only to material within a parenthetical phrase, placing the tag within the closing parenthesis may be appropriate. (In the above examples, in a real article, the footnote markers, etc. would link to footnotes in the footnotes/reference list at the end of the article, created by use of the template.) Numbers * In general, write whole numbers one through nine as words, write other numbers that take two words or fewer to say as either numerals or words, and write all other numbers as numerals: or , or , or , but , , ). This applies to both ordinal and cardinal numbers. * Use a comma to delimit numbers with four or more digits to the left of the decimal point: and . Grammar * For the possessive of singular nouns ending with just one s'', add just an apostrophe. * For a normal plural noun, ending with a pronounced ''s, form the possessive by adding just an apostrophe e.g. . Tense For in-universe articles: * Past tense must be used on any article describing entities that are deceased or no longer exist, or sections of any in-universe article detailing past events e.g. , not . * Present tense must be used on any location, creature, and character article, where this does not conflict with the first guideline. Current "in-universe time" on is generally considered to be fixed at the end of the announced series which is furthest down the timeline (which would be the events of Freedom Planet 2. Vocabulary Formal use of language is mandatory on all canon encyclopedia articles e.g. , not . Formality and neutrality * Uncontracted forms such as do not or it is are the default in encyclopedic style; don't and it's are too informal. * On encyclopedia articles, avoid such phrases as remember that and note that, which address readers directly in a less-than-encyclopedic tone. Similarly, phrases such as of course, naturally, obviously, clearly, and actually make presumptions about readers' knowledge, and call into question the reason for including the information in the first place. Do not tell readers that something is ironic, surprising, unexpected, amusing, coincidental, unfortunate, etc. This supplies a point of view. Simply state the sourced facts and allow readers to draw their own conclusions. Perspective Articles on are one of two types: * In-universe: Article should be written as if the world of Freedom Planet was the real world. The titles should not be referred to in a sentence, and characters should not be treated as fictional constructs. These articles include all character, location, flora and fauna, event etc. articles. * Real world: Article should be written from "our" perspective. This includes all company, staff and other real life articles. Images * Avoid sandwiching text between two images that face each other, or between an image and an infobox. * Lead images, which usually appear inside an infobox, should usually be no wider than 250px. * Thumbnails shown in the article should generally be 200px. Images containing important detail (e.g. a map, diagram, or chart) may need larger sizes than usual to make them readable. Links * Make links only where they are relevant and helpful in the context: Hyperlinks are distracting, and may slow the reader down. Redundant links (e.g. ) clutter the page and make future maintenance harder. High-value links that are worth pursuing should stand out clearly. * Do not use external links in the body of an article. Articles can include an external links section at the end, pointing to further information outside as opposed to citing sources. Miscellaneous Source mode editing markup * Place spaces on either side of the text in a heading e.g. Heading . * Place a blank line before a line containing a heading, except when a sub-heading immediately follows a heading, where there should be no blank line between the heading and the sub-heading. * Do not place a blank line between a heading and the text or files below it. * If used, should be added immediately under the heading. If it is followed by a file, the file link should be immediately under it before a blank line separating the file link and the beginning of the text. * File link parameters should appear in this order: * Place blank lines before and after a file, separating it from body text. * Place a space after the asterisk and hash symbols in unordered and ordered lists respectively, so that each new list item is easier to find e.g. * Item. * Sparingly, longer quotes of short passages of dialogue may be emphasized by using tags. Of course, the quoted text should be in italics and be enclosed with quotation marks e.g. "Quote" — Who said it to Whom. * Reference lists should be enclosed within a scroll box. To promote consistency and ease of editing, the following items, if appropriate, should appear in this order before the lead section of an article. # , which should appear together on one line rather than split apart. # Information about other uses, similar topics and links to disambiguation pages. # Notices detailing article quality and areas of improvement – if more than one is used, they should appear together on the same line, and should not be separated by spaces. If more than two are used, enclose them with . # template containing a relevant quotation, in the color most closely associated with the subject of the article. The quoted text itself should not contain links. (See below for more information.) # Infobox template, if a relevant one exists, split apart with a line for each template parameter. The closing curly bracket for the infobox template should be on a new line. The lead section should begin directly after this curly bracket, not on a new line. Separate each of the items listed above with a blank line. Other points * Quotes may be added to any page. Quote boxes should only be used once at the top of the page.